A longstanding proposal to allow the merger of Bexar County and its municipal governments had a frosty reception Thursday in a legislative committee.

The city-county consolidation proposal by state Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, drew praise for its goal of making governments more efficient, but was criticized for its possibly negative impact on minority voters and on rural residents who want to be free of city regulation.

The bill and constitutional amendment package was left pending in the Texas House Committee on County Affairs.

Its chairman, state Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said it'll be up to Larson to muster enough committee votes to advance it to the full House.

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The proposal, which has been circulating since the early 1990s, faces numerous suggested revisions to address concerns of legislators, San Antonio and the Texas Municipal League that represents cities.

Major concerns raised by Castro in a letter to lawmakers — including merger of debts, pension programs and benefits — have been confronted and resolved in other states, Larson insisted.

“Nothing he wrote hasn't had to be dealt with in communities like Nashville, Indianapolis, Denver, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Larson said.

Remaining doubts must be removed for meaningful improvement to come, he said.

“If Texas wants to really change, then we need to change the architecture” of government, Larson said. “The concept is to allow the voters to make a decision whether they want to consolidate the city and county governances and get the efficiencies that come when you consolidate.”

Coleman said the merger concept may have merit from an efficiency standpoint, but he's concerned that Larson's measure — which applies only to Bexar County — could diminish minority voters' strength.

“The city of Houston has elected an openly gay woman as its mayor. If we had uni-government, with county and city, she would never have been elected,” Coleman said.

Nor could Houston elect its first Hispanic mayor under a unified government, he speculated.

Larson responded: “We need to make sure that it's set up the right way to try to keep that from happening.”